So, while I'm sure a lot of people managed to check my profile and discover what my absence was about, some may not have. Essentially, my mother had a heart attack a full week ago and the hospital she was sent to have been negligent ever since. Giving her medication she's allergic to, failing to look after her, putting her in an infectious ward despite having no immune system due to chemotherapy.
Yesterday she was moved to a new hospital after a lot of threats and the moment we got there, the doctors revealed that not only had the other one listed her as having had medication which she hasn't, but they'd also failed to even sign her out the hospital, so she had to wait an hour in the ambulance because the new hospital couldn't log her in to theirs until she was out the last because then there would be two instances of her in the system and that wouldn't allow them to register her.
It's been a shitshow and I can't guarantee unbroken updates for the immediate future. If all goes well, it'll be fine, but if I fail to update for a day then please assume "something else" has happened that I've had to spend the day trying to fix.
Chapter 6
"Sit with me."
Jaune knew it was an invitation, even if Master Ren framed it as an order. To break in the midst of their training like this was unlike him, but lessons were commonplace, and he assumed this was another.
Master Ren led him toward the back of the temple grounds, to a small wooden trellis woven over with vines and plants. In the centre of it, shielded by the flowers and thin wooden slats, a low table and several cushions were set upon a stone floor swept meticulously clean of weeds. Jaune had known the master to spend much of his time knelt there, drinking tea freshly squeezed from local herbs and silently spending hours of his day while Jaune trained or did his chores. Sometimes Master Ren would request fresh water, read, or even write, but it was always a place for him and him alone.
"Should I pour us tea?" asked Jaune, kneeling opposite his teacher.
"Please and thank you. These old bones may yet be strong but the repeated motion of the mortar and pestle taxes them all the same."
"It's no problem, master."
Jaune gently took the rather heavy instruments and began to grind. He didn't ask why Master Ren had brought him here, for there was little wisdom in asking a question that would be answered in time. Had Master Ren brought him here for a purpose, he would share it. And if it was just to relax, then there was no need to worry over a reason. Patience was a virtue, as much as it was one he'd struggled to learn.
"I like to retreat here and comprehend the world. All people need a place they can call their own, somewhere away from the busy world where they can be at peace. Tell me, my student. What do you feel when you are here?"
"With all due respect, master, I don't think I've been sat here long enough to experience any revelations."
Master Ren chuckled. "I didn't mean anything so whimsical. Literally. What do you feel on your body right now?"
"I feel… cold. It's a sunny day but the sweat is cooling on my skin as it evaporates. It was a relief when we were training, but now it's making me feel chilly. My muscles are aching, but it's a dull pain, even pleasant. If you'll forgive me, the cushions are uncomfortable."
"Nothing to forgive. Looking back, I'd have rather set this upon grass as well."
"We could work on that if you like."
"I am not sure we have time, my student. The world has taken note of us at last – first with the deserters and now with those who came last season. I sense a change in the air, and not for the better."
The pestle came to a halt. Jaune clutched it tight. "This is my fault."
"Is it the heron's fault when it must kill the fish? Is it the apple's fault if it should fall on someone's head? You were accosted, Jaune, and you defended yourself. All that came after was actions taken by others. Do you know what I feel when I sit here? I feel the faint breeze through my hair, the clarity of the air as it enters my lungs, and I smell the faint fragrance of tea leaves mixing with ripening fruit. I hear the rustle of the leaves, the songs of the birds, and, yes, I also feel the chill as hard-earned sweat cools on my skin." He smiled. "I feel all this, and I feel at peace. Do you?"
Jaune considered the question. "I do. I feel happy here. Life is peaceful, but also productive. I know I shouldn't let pride overcome me, but I still feel proud of being so self-sufficient, and of making progress in my training. It's peaceful but without any waste. We're productive as well."
"That we are." Shu Ren smiled. "That we are. I am pleased you feel that way, especially given the nightmarish origins you came from. The loss of your family, the Grimm, this war. I am glad that you have not chosen to dedicate your life to as chaotic a purpose as vengeance."
"I think I am as well, master."
Master Ren nodded and turned away, allowed Jaune to finish the tea leaves and pour them each a cup. The leaves brewed in water not hot enough to boil, and soon he was breathing in their fragrant scent as he took a drink. He'd grown up on cordial and fizzy drinks like most children, all laden with sugar. These drinks were much softer, delicate, and he hadn't been able to taste the subtle flavours at first. Master Ren had told him it was because his tastebuds had grown used to being bombarded with flavour, to the point they couldn't discern the subtlety. He'd been right. All those artificial flavours had swamped his head. Even the smallest sprinkle of salt, pepper or spice was like a flavour explosion to him now, and it had opened his eyes in more ways than one.
"Have you ever noticed how often the last words of those dying are to realise the sudden beauty of the world?" asked Master Ren. It was sudden, shocking, and more than a little concerning. "So many spend their lives never seeing it, and only realising in their final moments how soft the sun on their face feels, or how beautiful is the sight of a drop of dew running down a flower's petal."
"Master—"
"So many spend their life in pursuit of quantifiable value. Numbers. How much money they earn, how many friends they have on social media, how many views on a video, how many readers on a story. How big their house is, how expensive their car, how high their IQ. We live in a world where people boil down their worth to an arbitrary set of numbers, and waste their lives trying to raise them, only to realise as they die how worthless it all is. Only then, when it becomes apparent they cannot take any of it with them, do they shed a tear for the simple beauty of the world they've ignored."
He turned to Jaune, then. "That is why I am pleased you can see the simple beauty of our world. It is why I am content in my life, however it may end, because I have spent it without regret, and I will die knowing that I took nothing for granted. I valued my life, spent it wisely, and always looked after my body and mind."
"Please don't talk that way, master."
"Hmhmhm." Shu Ren closed his eyes and chuckled. "I am an old man, Jaune. You know this. My time is approaching its end, and I know you will feel grief for me. I will not ask you to do otherwise. However, I shall ask you to remember that I lived a good life. Mourn my loss from your life, but do not mourn my death – for it will have been a good death. I hope you will feel the same way about your own, howsoever and whensoever it occurs." He raised a hand, brushing it under the wilting petal of a flower still blooming so late in the year. "The world is beautiful despite its many dangers. It is beautiful despite the Grimm, despite this war, and despite all the people in the world who would ignore it."
Jaune Arc didn't know how to respond to such a morbid topic. Master Ren always picked his lessons well, and timed them as to when he needed them, so to be told all this now… It smacked of the master preparing him for his death. And as much as he might have kept saying it could happen any day, and that he was old, Jaune knew the old man was wiser than that. He could feel it coming. He knew.
"Remember my words, student. Remember the beauty of our world, no matter what horrors you come to see. No matter the cruelty of people, remember that goodness exists, and all you need do is look for it."
"…" Jaune bowed his head. "I'll never forget them."
/-/
The air had just begun to turn crisp with the chill of autumn when Master Ren sensed them approaching. Jaune felt it too, but not by any keen aura sense. It was the stillness of the woodland creatures and the sudden tension in the air. There was a wrongness he felt deep in his soul, and which he hadn't felt since the fall of Ansel.
"Master," he whispered. "Shouldn't we leave?"
"Where would we go where they would not follow," asked Shu Ren. "I am an old man, Jaune. My body runs on aura as much as it does anything else. No. I have lived my life here and I have committed myself to dying here if needs be." He paused. "They are splitting up. Several loop around the back as we speak. Wait by the temple doors. Remember, you must take the scrolls."
"What about you?"
Master Ren had no answer, but Jaune understood that silence sometimes spoke louder. He had been the best teacher a young boy could ask for, but they had both known that would come to an end at some point. By disease or by old age, Master Ren's days had always been numbered. Jaune's hands clenched into fists.
"I'll avenge you—"
"No!" Master Ren whirled on him, eyes wide beneath bushy eyebrows. "No vengeance, no sorrow. I will not have my memory tainted by anger, and I will not have you waste your life on something so petty!"
"But—"
"Remember me as I was, as we were, not as some object stolen from you. Heed my lessons and listen to your soul. Do not let the passion of the moment overcome you or you shall be no better than those deserters."
Jaune swallowed his frustration and angled his head downward. "Yes master."
"You are a good student. You will represent the Lotus Sect well. But remember that you must find your own creed. You are a Xia now. Wander the world, find yourself, and find a cause you will be glad to dedicate your life toward." He smiled and clapped a hand to Jaune's shoulder. "When you can look death in the eye and smile at a life well lived, then you will truly know satisfaction. As I do now looking at the man I have helped raise."
"Master..."
"They come now. To the temple. Prepare."
Jaune nodded, refusing to hesitate as he turned and rushed into the temple proper. He stood by the doorway, waiting to see if hostilities would commence. Master Ren waited in the centre of the courtyard, standing with his hands linked behind him as Cinder Fall and a larger man with bulging muscles and a thick beard walked into the temple grounds.
No sign of Mercury or Emerald, meaning they had surely looped around the back, ready to catch him should be run. There may have been others as well. Jaune clung to the door's frame and gripped it tight, fingers creaking into the thin wooden slats. They appeared calm, but each had their aura up, unawares or perhaps uncaring that he and Master Ren could feel it. They were ready for a battle.
By comparison, he and Master Ren stood with their aura at ease. It was just the way he'd been trained, to not hold your aura "up" and waste it like they did. His aura was fluid, ready to respond, circulating through his meridians like blood through his veins. It was contained within him, unwasted, but ready to block attacks to specific areas for the least amount of aura possible.
"You have returned," said Master Ren. Cinder and her ally came to a stop. "But I sense that you are not here with friendly intentions."
"What makes you say that?" asked Cinder, smiling warmly.
"The fact that your auras are held tight and ready, that your friend grips a canister of dust behind his back, that no less than three of your allies have spread around the back of the temple." Jaune caught the message aimed at him. Three, and to the rear. Cinder's smile had long since fallen. "You are not as subtle as you believe, nor as capable. But that is why you are here, correct? You have failed to learn the art I granted to you and consider that my fault."
"Your art didn't work!"
"You failed to comprehend it, but that is no surprise. I could see the impatience in you before. The greed. If you cannot take the time to meditate and find your inner self, how can you hope to use your aura to disrupt another? And I did warn you it could take years of practice. You are back before even one has elapsed."
The huge man held an arm across Cinder's body, halting her from taking a threatening step forward.
"Calm," the man rumbled, then faced Master Ren. "I am Hazel Rainart. I have been sent on behalf of my employer to request you meet with her. Your skills have been noticed, and we believe we can provide students eager to learn from you."
"To your own ends, no doubt. War and death, suffering and poverty." Master Ren chuckled. "The Lotus Sect selects its students carefully. Besides, I am old and withering. I shall not live long enough to have another student."
"Our orders are to bring you back regardless. You and your student both, along with these scrolls you have. Please cooperate. This doesn't need to become messy."
"You are a conflicted man, Mr Rainart. Tell me what brings one so uneasy with violence to commit it."
Hazel scowled. "My sister was taken from me. This is how I will avenge her."
"Hmhmhm. Do you see, Jaune? This is what vengeance does to a man. It corrupts them, wraps them in bitterness until all that is left is an all-consuming need. And that need does not satisfy. It only leads to more misery. If he should ever achieve his so-called justice, he will find himself alone among an ocean of corpses, with nothing to show for it but the knowledge that the one he has avenged would abhor the monster he has become."
Hazel's body trembled with rage. "Do not test me. I am trying to be peaceful."
Master Ren chuckled. "Peace was never your intention. I grow old listening to your poor attempts at distraction. Attack or depart but know it shall require more than the two of you to best me."
Hazel looked to Cinder and nodded. His arm came down and the two parted, walking away from one another to place Master Ren between them. "I wouldn't underestimate us if I were you," said Hazel.
"Underestimate? My boy, I am doing no such thing."
Jaune forced himself to turn away and enter the temple. Master Ren had provoked them for a reason, and verbally brought up the idea of a distraction. It was a warning to him, clear as day, that those behind the temple were moving in. Jaune took a deep breath and let it out, picked up his Jian from its place by the door and tucked it under his arm, hidden in the expansive folds of his sleeve.
Walking quietly was no aura art of special technique. It was an awareness born of patience and, in Master Ren's words, politeness. So as not to disturb an old man's meditation. Each step was measured and slow, distributing his weight softly before lifting his other foot. The floorboards did not creak as he made his way to Master Ren's quarters, and sure enough he heard voices within.
"—get them all. Cinder will be done with the old man soon enough."
"I don't hear them fighting."
"She's buying us time. Hold that bag open."
The door was open and neither heard him enter through it. They were piling the scrolls unceremoniously into a backpack, and while Jaune felt his temper surge he took a deep breath to calm it. He waited until they were finished, and until Emerald was tugging on the drawstrings to close the bag. Only then did he speak.
And his fist did the speaking for him. Emerald was knocked clear off her feet by his powerful blow and might well have died then and there if she wasn't a huntress. His fist, coated with aura, might as well have been a solid metal cudgel as far as someone's skull was concerned. The bag went down and Jaune caught it on his foot, flipped it back and slipped it across his back in one motion.
"What—!?"
Mercury didn't get a chance to finish before Jaune was on him, moving far more quickly than he had in their last spar. He drove the boy back with a flurry of short strikes at close range, and it was all Mercury could do to hold on.
"Fuck!" he swore, then drew a foot back and grinned. "Hahhh!"
Jaune prepared for the knee but didn't expect the blast of dust and smoke that came from it, striking his body with buckshot. It was only pain, though. Master Ren had taught him long ago that pain was a part of life and not something to let control you.
Mercury must have expected him to flinch or recoil, stunned, and to give him an opening, but Jaune took the blow to his aura and kept coming without wasting a single moment. He caught Mercury's metal knee with the inside of his foot, pushed down and snapped it off in one go. The boy hopped, eyes wide, and was knocked off his feet to join Emerald by a swift palm to the stomach.
The world shifted before he could continue. Mercury fell several paces to the left, and Emerald attacked from behind despite that she had been to his right before. His instincts burned at him to turn and face her, but he closed his eyes instead. Blind fighting had been something Master Ren had only just begun teaching him and he was by no means skilled at it.
But Emerald and Mercury were by no means quiet or disciplined.
He turned to the real Emerald at the sound of her footsteps, the whistle of air and the feel of her aura. The whistle of an object through the air was sharper than a hand would be – a blade of some kind. Jaune stepped away and felt it brush by, then retaliated with a devastating knee to her stomach and the pommel of his Jian slamming down onto her back. The blade would be pointless given they still had their aura. It was better used like this to deliver a solid blow to her spine.
Paralysed for but a moment, Emerald crashed to the ground before recovering and scrambling away. "He's immune to my Semblance!" she yelped, misunderstanding his actions entirely. "Damn it, Mercury, you said you could handle him!"
"He was obviously sandbagging!"
So much chatter. Jaune frowned, his head tilting. Mercury was where he'd still been, unable to really chase him with only one leg, and Emerald was just about climbing to her feet. Something else creaked, however. Cloth fluttered.
Twisting, Jaune brought his Jian up in time to feel a blade slam down and lock onto it. Aura filled his mind and he cracked his eyes open to see a manically grinning face in his. Narrow, wicked, with dark hair tied back. He was topless but for a coat worn over the top, and his smile was filled with razor-sharp teeth.
"Hello there!"
Grunting, Jaune tilted left and stepped right, surrendering his guard and causing the man to rush on by. Moving swiftly away, Jaune snapped a roundhouse kick into the side of Emerald's head and sent her slamming back to the floor. Without stopping, he moved over her groaning body and pointed his sword at the faunus. The huge tail was a giveaway there. Was he with the White Fang? Were all of them? Only this one had been faunus, but it wasn't impossible to imagine humans working with them. Sympathisers or family. An idiot might have stopped to ask, but Jaune's lips were sealed. Master Ren had taught him better.
"Not much of a talker, are you?" mocked the faunus. "You handled the brats well enough but they're just idiot children Cinder thinks have worth. Nothing special. You're not half bad, though. This ought to be fun!"
The faunus' tail shot out on the last word, piercing past Jaune's face as he stepped aside. It turned and hooked back, seeking to scrape across his throat on the return, but Jaune swept his Jian back to parry it, then slid both feet together and snapped his right foot out in a kick striking into the man's chest. The body went one way, the tail stayed put, and there was a jarring and no doubt agonising halt as his tail pulled taut. One which had the man hissing in pain, but still grinning like a lunatic.
"Good! Good! Ha ha ha! I like you!"
He was so much faster than the other two, faster even than Jaune, using sharp knives that were perfectly suited to operate at the same distances he was. The faunus had no trouble keeping up when Jaune got in close, and their arms and legs clashed, sweeping kicks deflected and the stab of the tail dodged every time. Those blows that did land were always glancing, Jaune pushing them just far enough away, or the huntsman angling his body just enough so that Jaune's knuckles skidded off hard muscle.
In another few years, perhaps, he'd have had the measure of this huntsman and bested him, but he was still only young by teaching's standards. A little over two years at most. Jaune felt the tide turn against him when the faunus slipped a hand past his guard and touched his arm. He felt the all-too-familiar feeling of aura not his own slip into his body, coagulating like a thick clot of blood in his left bicep.
It was a sick bastardisation of Master Ren's own technique and he knew what it did. Others might not have noticed it, but when you had your aura circulating through your body at all times, you felt when the meridians in your arm suddenly cried out in pain, dry of the aura they were used to sustaining and suddenly barren.
His aura had ceased to work on his left arm. The faunus kicked him back into a wall and, with Jaune trapped against it, stabbed his tail forward, the tip glinting with ichor.
Jaune hissed and swept the bag up and between them, using it as a shield both to deflect and distract the attack. The sharp tail speared through the layers of felt and across priceless scrolls, then came out his end and sliced a line across his arm before it struck and impacted into the wood wall. Pulling away, the bag split and spilled scrolls out across the floor. Jaune gathered a handful of them in his arms as the faunus yanked his tail out, but that was the least of his worries.
His arm was burning. The line across it sizzled.
Outside, an explosion sounded.
"Tyrian!" roared Cinder. "We need you!"
"Awww. And this was just getting good." Snorting, the so-called Tyrian stepped back with a cruel smile. "I'm sure you brats can finish up here," he said to Emerald and Mercury, who had collected his leg and attached it once more. "He's poisoned, so you just need to live long enough for him to expire. Or don't. All the same to me."
He knew the man was telling the truth. Already, his aura was flooding back into his arm and meeting something hot and thick like sludge. It was raw agony. Jaune knelt and fumbled several more scrolls into the remainder of the backpack, but he didn't have the time to get them all. Too many lay on the floor between him and Tyrian.
I'm sorry, Master Ren. I'm not good enough to protect them all. He tightened his grip on the pack and threw himself into the wall Tyrian had already damaged. The wood couldn't withstand his weight and he crashed through it and outside. Mercury and Emerald shouted and gave chase. But I'll save those I can and come back for the rest. This, I swear!
Jaune vaulted the temple's walls and vanished into the forest.
/-/
Shu Ren moved his arms slowly to keep his aura circulating within them, to keep his old bones working despite the pain. His pace was slow as he circled before the two interlopers, his heartbeat calm and his mind at ease.
He felt his student leave the temple grounds and escape.
Such a diligent student. He wished he could have taught him for another decade at least, and it was such a disservice to cut him out into the world so early. Jaune would survive, however. He had that in him. The legacy of the Lotus Sect would thrive with him.
"He's strong," grunted Hazel, one fist on the floor and his shoulders heaving. The dust crystals that had begun to stick out his body felt so hideously wrong to Shu Ren's senses. They had made the man unnaturally powerful, but strength without technique was meaningless. It was nothing more than a shortcut.
"This is why we need his power," hissed Cinder. "If we can take it—"
"You already had it, child, but what you want is not to learn but to be given. You do not understand the concept of hard work, of patience, of earning strength. All you want is power now, given freely and without consequence." He shook his head, more disappointed than angry. "Whomsoever taught you has let you down."
"Shut up! Just... shut up!" The woman shot off an arrow at him but Shu Ren met it head on with one finger. A brief flicker of his aura had it turning back to the dust it had been before she formed it into an arrow. "D—Damn it!"
Shu Ren sensed the aura behind him. "Good day to you, faunus."
"Oh! Oh! So polite, and chatty! Your student wasn't much for it!"
"You'll have to forgive Jaune," said Shu Ren, chuckling faintly. "He's still at that stage where he cannot split his concentration between combat and conversation. He'll improve in time."
"Won't get much of a chance, I'm afraid." The faunus flexed his tail. "I injected poison into his bloodstream. He isn't going to survive much longer. I give him half a day until he's unconscious, then maybe a day until he expires." He cackled. "Does that make you angry, old man?"
"No." Shu Ren replied easily. "It makes me concerned, of course, but I have faith in my student. He shall not die so easily. Nor shall I."
"Enough, Tyrian," Cinder snarled. "Did you get the scrolls?"
"About half. The kid escaped with the rest. I sent your brats after him."
Shu Ren smiled.
Cinder noticed it. "Even if he escapes Mercury and Emerald, we'll track him down. It's not too late to change your mind, either. Surrender and teach us your techniques and we'll let your student go."
"What would it matter? You have already proven yourself incapable of learning. You are brash and impatient. I could not teach one such as you anything, even if I wished to. You simply aren't good enough."
"Then you'll die here!" she screamed.
"Hm. It is a good day to die." Shu Ren linked his hands behind his back, faced the three killers, and offered them a kindly smile. "Come, then. Allow me to teach you one lesson before you leave my grounds. A lesson of humility."
/-/
Blood and poison pumped through Jaune's body. He could feel both at work as he raced through the familiar woodlands, and he could hear the pursuers behind him. Two, likely the younger ones, but he didn't dare guess at whether others were behind. Were he sure it was but the two, he'd turn back and fight them, but if they delayed him enough for Tyrian or Cinder to catch up then he'd fail Master Ren.
And he would not fail him. Not after all he'd done.
Even so, the poison was eating at him along with his fatigue. His muscles burned and darkness crept in at the edge of his vision. Blood continued to ooze down his chest from the wound in his arm, and the skin there burned like it was being stabbed by a million tiny needles at once.
I'll not outrun them when I'm poisoned like this.
It was a cold, calm thought in his head. An easy realisation. The poison was sapping his stamina, and his legs were threatening him with numbness already. If he were away, he might be able to purge it with bloodletting and then fight the rest with aura, but he couldn't do that and keep going. And all Emerald and Mercury needed to do was keep him running until he was exhausted and collapsed.
Then the scrolls, what few he'd managed to save, would fall into their hands. Master Ren's legacy – the legacy of the entire Lotus Sect – would end with him, and their secrets would be used for whatever evil Cinder and her allies planned.
No. He couldn't let that happen.
I haven't perfected this, but I don't have a choice!
Narrowing his eyes, Jaune focused his aura inwards, redirecting his aura down to his lower meridians. The theory was sound, and Master Ren had drilled him on the movements, but they had been hard to achieve even in a moment of concentration. They were even harder now. His aura bucked and thrashed like a wild animal—
No. That was his error. His aura was no animal but an extension of himself, and it was not fighting him. Any failure was his own. Sucking in a deep breath, he tried again. His aura flowed through the meridians. Yinmen, weiyang, heyang, cheng jin, feiyang. Down through his thigh, his calves, around his knee, down his shin. Through the channels and pathways there, infusing his legs with the power of his soul.
Not to protect as a huntsman might, not to force it all there and hope for the best but pushing it into select muscle groups. Infusing the specific muscles with the power of his soul, a power that the old masters had called Qi, but which most now knew as aura. Something that had ever been a fuel source for those who knew how to use it. Something flickered to life. Jaune's eyes widened.
"Of course!" he breathed. "It's so simple!"
/-/
Mercury burst from the trees and into the wide-open meadow and, with a great heave for air, collapsed onto his hands and knees. Emerald stumbled along after him and dropped as well, clutching her sides.
Ahead of them, impossibly, their quarry seemed to pick up speed, literally sprinting across the grassy plains without any sign of exhaustion. A flock of deer raced ahead of him, startled by his approach, and against all odds the bastard caught up with and overtook them, racing across the land like a fucking deer.
"I—Impossible!" Emerald wheezed. "H—He should be on the verge of death!"
Mercury agreed, but even failing that the guy should have been exhausted. They were exceptionally fit, and also uninjured, and they were literally at the end of what their bodies could manage. Mercury watched as the blue-robed man crossed the entire meadow and kept going into the forests ahead, never once slowing down or even falling into a jog. There were professional athletes who couldn't have managed that.
"Cinder will be furious," Emerald gasped.
"He'll die to Tyrian's poison," Mercury replied, collapsing on his side. "W—We'll pick up his body later." He groaned. "A—After we've caught our breath. Do you think—"
Behind them, a great, pink explosion burst up from the temple, followed by an ominous silence.
And then a woman's agonised scream.
"I think we should hunt him down before going back," Emerald whispered.
"Yeah." Mercury was no more eager to be close to Cinder given that scream than his partner. "Let's just catch our breath first. He can't be that hard to track. And it's not like he can keep up that pace forever, right?"
Next Chapter: 2nd April
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